Global Climate Change - Vital Signs of the Planet - News RSS FeedVital Signs of the Planet.http://climate.nasa.gov/
en-usNASA highlights Ceres, Earth’s flowing ice, Mars at American Geophysical Union<p>NASA researchers will present new findings on a wide range of Earth and space science topics at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Dec. 12-16 in San Francisco. NASA-related briefings will be carried live on the agency&rsquo;s website.</p>
<p>Media registration is open for the event, which will be held at the Moscone Convention Center at 747 Howard St.</p>
<p>NASA briefing topics include: new global satellite views of Earth&rsquo;s flowing ice sheets and glaciers; the latest discoveries made by the&nbsp;<a href="http://mars.nasa.gov/msl/" target="_blank">Mars Curiosity rover</a>; the impact of climate change on animal populations around the world; and new results from NASA&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/main/index.html" target="_blank">Dawn</a>&nbsp;spacecraft orbiting the dwarf planet Ceres.</p>
<p>Agency scientists, and their colleagues who use NASA research capabilities, also will present noteworthy findings during scientific sessions that are open to registered media.</p>
<p>Details on NASA presentations will be updated online throughout the week. For a complete and up-to-date schedule of briefings and media participation information visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/agu" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov/agu</a></p>
<p>To watch the NASA-related briefings live, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/live" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov/live</a></p>
<p>For more information about NASA programs, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov</a></p>
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 22:37:25 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2528/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2528/NASA announces first geostationary vegetation, atmospheric carbon mission<p>NASA has selected a first-of-its-kind Earth science mission that will extend our nation&rsquo;s lead in measuring key greenhouse gases and vegetation health from space to advance our understanding of Earth&rsquo;s natural exchanges of carbon between the land, atmosphere and ocean.</p>
<p>The primary goals of the Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory (GeoCARB), led by Berrien Moore of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, are to monitor plant health and vegetation stress throughout the Americas, and to probe, in unprecedented detail, the natural sources, sinks and exchange processes that control carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane in the atmosphere.</p>
<p>The investigator-led mission will launch on a commercial communications satellite to make observations over the Americas from an orbit of approximately 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) above the equator. The mission was competitively selected from 15 proposals submitted to the agency&#39;s second Earth Venture - Mission announcement of opportunity for small orbital investigations of the Earth system.</p>
<p>&quot;The GeoCARB mission breaks new ground for NASA&#39;s Earth science and applications programs,&quot; said Michael Freilich, director of the Earth Science Division of NASA&rsquo;s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. &quot;GeoCARB will provide important new measurements related to Earth&rsquo;s global natural carbon cycle, and will allow monitoring of vegetation health throughout North, Central and South America.&quot;</p>
<div class='image_module left' style='width:2312pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<img alt='From an orbit 22,000 miles above the Americas, the Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory will monitor plant health and vegetation stress and probe the natural sources, sinks and exchange processes of key greenhouse gases. Credit: NASA' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1040' style='width:2312pxpx'>
<figcaption>
From an orbit 22,000 miles above the Americas, the Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory will monitor plant health and vegetation stress and probe the natural sources, sinks and exchange processes of key greenhouse gases. Credit: NASA
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>GeoCARB will measure daily the total concentration of carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere with a horizontal ground resolution of 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 kilometers). GeoCARB also will measure solar-induced fluorescence, a signal related directly to changes in vegetation photosynthesis and plant stress.</p>
<p>Total NASA funding for the mission over the next five years will be $166 million, which includes initial development, launch of the mission as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite, and data analysis.</p>
<p>The University of Oklahoma-led GeoCARB team will build an advanced payload that will be launched on a commercial communications satellite, employing otherwise unused launch and spacecraft capacity to advance science and provide societal benefit. By demonstrating GeoCARB can be flown as a hosted payload on a commercial satellite, the mission will strengthen NASA&rsquo;s partnerships with the commercial satellite industry and provide a model that can be adopted by NASA&rsquo;s international partners to expand these observations to other parts of the world.</p>
<p>Mission partners include the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California; SES Government Solutions Company in Reston, Virginia; the Colorado State University in Fort Collins; and NASA&rsquo;s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.</p>
<p>GeoCARB is the second space-based investigation in the Earth Venture - Mission series of rapidly developed, cost-constrained projects for NASA&#39;s Earth Science Division. The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/cygnss" target="_blank">Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System</a>&nbsp;(CYGNSS), selected in 2012, is the first mission in the series and is scheduled to launch from Florida on Monday, Dec. 12.</p>
<p>The Earth Venture missions are part of NASA&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://science.nasa.gov/about-us/smd-programs/earth-system-science-pathfinder" target="_blank">Earth System Science Pathfinder</a>&nbsp;(ESSP) program. The Venture Class small, targeted science investigations complement NASA&#39;s larger research missions. A National Academies 2007 report, Earth Science and Applications from Space Decadal Survey, recommended NASA undertake these regularly solicited, quick-turnaround projects.</p>
<p>The Earth Venture program selects new investigations, at regular intervals, to accommodate new scientific priorities using cutting-edge instrumentation carried on airborne platforms, small space missions, or as secondary instruments or hosted payloads on larger platforms. NASA&#39;s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, manages the ESSP program for the agency&rsquo;s Science Mission Directorate.</p>
<p>For information about NASA&rsquo;s Earth science programs, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/earth" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov/earth</a></p>
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 19:23:55 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2527/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2527/NASA sets coverage for briefings, launch of small satellite constellation<p>The launch of NASA&rsquo;s Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) spacecraft is scheduled for 8:24 a.m. EST Monday, Dec. 12. News briefings, live launch commentary, photo opportunities and other media events will be held at nearby NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and carried live on NASA Television and the agency&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv" target="_blank">website</a>.</p>
<p>During the one-hour window, which opens at 8:19 a.m., CYGNSS will take off aboard an Orbital Sciences ATK air-launched Pegasus XL launch vehicle. The rocket is scheduled for deployment over the Atlantic Ocean from Orbital&rsquo;s L-1011 carrier aircraft.</p>
<p>CYGNSS will make frequent and accurate measurements of ocean surface winds throughout the lifecycle of tropical storms and hurricanes. The CYGNSS constellation consists of eight microsatellite observatories that will measure surface winds in and near a hurricane&rsquo;s inner core, including regions beneath the eyewall and intense inner rainbands that previously could not be measured from space.</p>
<h4><em><b>SATURDAY, DEC. 10</b></em></h4>
<h4><b>Social media event:</b></h4>
<p>Kennedy will be hosting a Facebook Live event at noon from the Skid Strip runway at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Briefers will highlight both the science involved in the CYGNSS mission, as well as the L-1011 aircraft and the Pegasus rocket, and participants will get a view inside the airplane. The event will stream live on Kennedy&rsquo;s Facebook page at:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.facebook.com/NASAKennedy" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/NASAKennedy</a></p>
<h4><b>NASA TV:&nbsp;</b></h4>
<p>For all media briefings, reporters may ask questions by calling the Kennedy newsroom at 321-867-2468 no later than 15 minutes before briefings begin. Media also can ask questions via Twitter by using the hashtag #askNASA.</p>
<p>1 p.m. &ndash; Prelaunch news conference at the Kennedy Press Site</p>
<p>Briefing participants are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Christine Bonniksen, CYGNSS program executive in the Earth Science Division of NASA&rsquo;s Science Mission Directorate</li>
<li>Tim Dunn, launch director at Kennedy</li>
<li>Bryan Baldwin, Pegasus launch vehicle program manager with Orbital ATK</li>
<li>John Scherrer, CYGNSS project manager at the Southwest Research Institute</li>
<li>Mike Rehbein, launch weather officer with the 45th Weather Squadron at Cape Canaveral</li>
</ul>
<p>1:45 p.m. &ndash; CYGNSS Mission Science Briefing</p>
<p>Briefing participants include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Chris Ruf, CYGNSS principal investigator with the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan</li>
<li>Aaron Ridley, CYGNSS constellation scientist with the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan</li>
<li>Mary Morris, doctoral student with the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan</li>
</ul>
<h4><em><b>MONDAY,&nbsp;DEC. 12</b></em></h4>
<h4><b>NASA TV:</b></h4>
<p>5:45 a.m. &ndash; Prelaunch program by NASA EDGE</p>
<p>6:45 a.m. &ndash; Launch coverage and commentary begins</p>
<p>Live coverage also will be available on social media at:</p>
<p>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.twitter.com/NASAKennedy" target="_blank">http://www.twitter.com/NASAKennedy</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NASAKennedy" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/NASAKennedy</a></p>
<p>Live countdown coverage on NASA&#39;s Launch Blog begins at 6:30 a.m. Dec. 12. Coverage features live updates as countdown milestones occur, as well as video clips highlighting launch preparations and the flight. For NASA&rsquo;s Launch Blog, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.nasa.gov/cygnss" target="_blank">http://blogs.nasa.gov/cygnss</a></p>
<p>To learn more about the CYGNSS mission, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/cygnss" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov/cygnss</a></p>
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 19:18:55 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2525/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2525/NASA’s ISS-RapidScat Earth science mission ends<p>NASA&rsquo;s International Space Station Rapid Scatterometer (ISS-RapidScat) Earth science instrument has ended operations following a successful two-year mission aboard the space station. The mission launched Sept. 21, 2014, and had recently passed its original decommissioning date.</p>
<p>ISS-RapidScat used the unique vantage point of the space station to provide near-real-time monitoring of ocean winds, which are critical in determining regional weather patterns. Its measurements of wind speed and direction over the ocean surface have been used by agencies worldwide for weather and marine forecasting and tropical cyclone monitoring. Its location on the space station made it the first spaceborne scatterometer that could observe how winds evolve throughout the course of a day.</p>
<p>&quot;As a first-of-its-kind mission, ISS-RapidScat proved successful in providing researchers and forecasters with a low-cost eye on winds over remote areas of Earth&#39;s oceans,&quot; said Michael Freilich, director of NASA&rsquo;s Earth Science Division. &quot;The data from ISS-RapidScat will help researchers contribute to an improved understanding of fundamental weather and climate processes, such as how tropical weather systems form and evolve.&quot;</p>
<p>The agencies that routinely used ISS-RapidScat&#39;s data for forecasting and monitoring operations include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Navy, along with European and Indian weather agencies. It provided more complete coverage of wind patterns far out to sea that could build into dangerous storms. Even if these storms never reach land, they can bring devastating wave impacts to coastal areas far away.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&quot;The unique coverage of ISS-RapidScat allowed us to see the rate of change or evolution in key wind features along mid-latitude storm tracks, which happen to intersect major shipping routes,&quot; said Paul Chang, Ocean Surface Winds Science team lead at NOAA&#39;s Center for Satellite Applications and Research. &quot;ISS-RapidScat observations improved situational awareness of marine weather conditions, which aid optimal ship routing and hazard avoidance, and marine forecasts and warnings.&quot;</p>
<p>During its mission, ISS-RapidScat also provided new insights into research questions such as how changing winds over the Pacific drove changes in sea surface temperature during the 2015-2016 El Ni&ntilde;o event. Due to its unique ability to sample winds at different times of day, its data will be useful to scientists for years to come.</p>
<p>ISS-RapidScat was born out of ingenuity, expertise and a need for speed. It was constructed in less than two years to replace its widely valued predecessor, NASA&#39;s decade-old QuikScat scatterometer satellite, at a fraction of the cost of the original -- largely by adapting spare parts from QuikScat.</p>
<p>On Aug. 19, a power distribution unit for the space station&rsquo;s Columbus module failed, resulting in a power loss to ISS-RapidScat. Later that day, as the mission operations team from NASA&#39;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, attempted to reactivate the instrument, one of the outlets on the power distribution unit experienced an electrical overload. In the following weeks, multiple attempts to restore ISS-RapidScat to normal operations were not successful, including a final attempt on Oct. 17.</p>
<p>NASA currently does not plan to launch another scatterometer mission. However, the loss of ISS-RapidScat data will be partially mitigated by the newly launched ScatSat ocean wind sensor, a mission of the Indian Space Research Organization.</p>
<p>ISS-RapidScat was the first continuous Earth-observing instrument specifically designed and developed to operate on the International Space Station exterior, but it&rsquo;s no longer the only one. The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) joined the space station in January 2015 to provide cost-effective measurements of atmospheric aerosols and clouds in Earth&#39;s atmosphere. Two more instruments are scheduled to launch to the space station in 2017 -- one that will allow scientists to monitor the ozone layer&rsquo;s gradually improving health, and another to observe lightning over Earth&#39;s tropics and mid-latitudes. Following that, two additional Earth science instruments are scheduled for launch in 2018 and 2019.</p>
<p>ISS-RapidScat was a partnership between JPL and the International Space Station Program Office at NASA&rsquo;s Johnson Space Center in Houston, with support from the Earth Science Division of NASA&#39;s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Other mission partners include the agency&rsquo;s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and its Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; the European Space Agency; and SpaceX.</p>
<p>NASA collects data from space, air, land and sea to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth&#39;s interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.</p>
<p>To access ISS-RapidScat data, or for more information, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/RapidScat" target="_blank">http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/RapidScat</a></p>
<h4>Media contacts</h4>
<p>Sean Potter<br />
NASA Headquarters, Washington<br />
202-358-1536<br />
sean.potter@nasa.gov</p>
<p>Alan Buis / Carol Rasmussen<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br />
818-354-0474 / 818-354-5999<br />
alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov / carol.m.rasmussen@jpl.nasa.gov</p>
Mon, 28 Nov 2016 20:57:41 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2523/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2523/NASA selects launch services for global surface water survey mission<p>NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency&#39;s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (<a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/surface-water-and-ocean-topography-swot/" target="_blank">SWOT</a>) mission. Launch is targeted for April 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.</p>
<p>The total cost for NASA to launch SWOT is approximately $112 million, which includes the launch service; spacecraft processing; payload integration; and tracking, data and telemetry support.</p>
<p>Designed to make the first-ever global survey of Earth&#39;s surface water, in addition to high-resolution ocean measurements, the SWOT mission will collect detailed measurements of how water bodies on Earth change over time. The satellite will survey at least 90 percent of the globe, studying Earth&#39;s lakes, rivers, reservoirs and oceans, at least twice every 21 days; aid in freshwater management around the world; and improve ocean circulation models and weather and climate predictions. The SWOT spacecraft will be jointly developed and managed by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d&#39;Etudes Spatiales (CNES).</p>
<p>NASA&#39;s Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage the SpaceX launch service. The SWOT project office at NASA&#39;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages spacecraft development for the agency&#39;s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.</p>
<p>For more information on SWOT, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">http://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/</a></p>
<p>For more information about NASA programs and missions, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov</a></p>
<h4><b>Media contacts</b></h4>
<p>Alan Buis<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br />
818-354-0474<br />
Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov&nbsp;<br />
<br />
Cheryl Warner<br />
NASA Headquarters, Washington<br />
202-358-1100<br />
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov&nbsp;<br />
<br />
Steve Cole<br />
NASA Headquarters, Washington<br />
202-358-0918<br />
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov&nbsp;<br />
<br />
George H. Diller<br />
Kennedy Space Center, Fla.<br />
321-867-2468<br />
george.h.diller@nasa.gov&nbsp;</p>
Mon, 28 Nov 2016 17:55:35 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2522/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2522/Study sheds new insights into global warming trends <p>A new multi-institutional study of the temporary slowdown in the global average surface temperature warming trend observed between 1998 and 2013 concludes the phenomenon represented a redistribution of energy within the Earth system, with Earth&rsquo;s ocean absorbing the extra heat. The phenomenon was referred to by some as the &ldquo;global warming hiatus.&rdquo; Global average surface temperature, measured by satellites and direct observations, is considered a key indicator of climate change.</p>
<p>In a paper published today in Earth&rsquo;s Future, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, lead author Xiao-Hai Yan of the University of Delaware, Newark, along with scientists from NASA&rsquo;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and several other institutions, discuss new understanding of the phenomenon. The paper grew out of a special U.S. Climate Variability and Predictability Program (CLIVAR) panel session at the 2015 American Geophysical Union fall meeting.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The hiatus period gives scientists an opportunity to understand uncertainties in how climate systems are measured, as well as to fill in the gap in what scientists know,&rdquo; said Yan.</p>
<p>&ldquo;NASA&rsquo;s examination of ocean observations has provided its own unique contribution to our knowledge of decadal climate trends and global warming,&rdquo; said study co-author Veronica Nieves of JPL and the University of California, Los Angeles. &ldquo;Scientists have more confidence now that Earth&rsquo;s ocean has continued to warm continuously through time. But the rate of global surface warming can fluctuate due to natural variations in the climate system over periods of a decade or so.&rdquo;</p>
<h4><b>Where&rsquo;s the missing heat?</b></h4>
<p>While Yan said it&rsquo;s difficult to reach complete consensus on such a complex topic, a thorough review of the literature and much discussion and debate revealed a number of key points on which these leading scientists concur:</p>
<ul>
<li>From 1998 to 2013, the rate of global mean surface warming slowed, which some call the &ldquo;global warming hiatus.&rdquo;</li>
<li>Natural variability plays a large role in the rate of global mean surface warming on decadal time scales.</li>
<li>Improved understanding of how the ocean distributes and redistributes heat will help the scientific community better monitor Earth&rsquo;s energy budget. Earth&rsquo;s energy budget is a complex calculation of how much energy enters our climate system from the sun and what happens to it: how much is stored by the land, ocean or atmosphere.</li>
</ul>
<p>&ldquo;To better monitor Earth&rsquo;s energy budget and its consequences, the ocean is most important to consider because the amount of heat it can store is extremely large when compared to the land or atmospheric capacity,&rdquo; said Yan.</p>
<p>According to the paper, &ldquo;arguably, ocean heat content -- from the surface to the seafloor -- might be a more appropriate measure of how much our planet is warming.&rdquo;</p>
<h4><b>Charting future research</b></h4>
<p>In the near term, the researchers hope this paper will lay the foundation for future research in the global change field. To begin, they suggest the climate community replace the term &ldquo;global warming hiatus&rdquo; with &ldquo;global surface warming slowdown&rdquo; to eliminate confusion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This terminology more accurately describes the slowdown in global mean surface temperature rise in the late 20th century,&rdquo; Yan said.</p>
<p>The scientists also called for continued support of current and future technologies for ocean monitoring to reduce observation errors in sea surface temperature and ocean heat content. This includes maintaining Argo, the main system for monitoring ocean heat content, and the development of Deep Argo to monitor the lower half of the ocean; the use of ship-based subsurface ocean temperature monitoring programs; advancements in robotic technologies such as autonomous underwater vehicles to monitor waters adjacent to land (like islands or coastal regions); and further development of real- or near-real-time deep ocean remote sensing methods.</p>
<p>Yan&rsquo;s research group reported in a 2015 <a href="http://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2016/nov/coastal-ocean-111615.html" target="_blank">paper</a> that some coastal oceans (e.g., U.S. East Coast, China Coast) responded faster to the recent global surface warming rate change than the global ocean.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Although these regions represent only a fraction of the ocean volume, the changing rate of ocean heat content is faster here, and real-time data and more research are needed to quantify and understand what is happening,&rdquo; Yan said.</p>
<p>Variability and heat sequestration over specific regions (e.g., Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern Oceans, etc.) require further investigation, the authors conclude. However, there is broad agreement among the scientists and in the literature that the slowdown in the global mean surface temperature increase from 1998 to 2013 was due to increased uptake of heat energy by the global ocean.</p>
<p>This research was funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation and NOAA. Other participating institutions include the NOAA, Silver Spring, Maryland; the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado; Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California; and the University of Washington, Seattle. To read the full paper, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000417/abstract"><b>http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016EF000417/abstract</b></a></p>
<p>For more information about NASA&#39;s Earth science activities, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/earth" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov/earth</a></p>
<h4>Media contacts</h4>
<p>Alan Buis<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br />
818-354-0474<br />
Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov</p>
<p>Karen Roberts<br />
University of Delaware, Newark<br />
302-831-1721<br />
krob@udel.edu</p>
Tue, 22 Nov 2016 17:02:27 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2521/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2521/The last three Octobers are the warmest on record<p>October 2016 was the second warmest October in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA&#39;s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.&nbsp;</p>
<p>October 2016&#39;s temperature was 0.18 degrees Celsius cooler than the warmest October in 2015. Last month was 0.89 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean October temperature from 1951-1980.</p>
<p>The top three October temperature anomalies have been the past three years. 2015 was the hottest on record, 1.07 degrees Celsius warmer than the October mean temperature, followed by 2016 and 2014. The top 10 October temperature anomalies all have occurred since 2000.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We continue to stress that long-term trends are the important thing, much more so than monthly rankings,&rdquo; said GISS director Gavin Schmidt.</p>
<div class='image_module left' style='width:680pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<a class='' href='http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/news/20161115/gistemp_seas_oct16_680.png' target='_blank'>
<img alt='GISTEMP Anomaly (including seasonal cycle)' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1032' style='width:680pxpx'>
</a>
<figcaption>
Monthly temperature anomalies with base 1980-2015, superimposed on a 1980-2015 mean seasonal cycle. Credit: NASA/GISS/Schmidt.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>The monthly analysis by the GISS team is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations.</p>
<p>The modern global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations didn&#39;t cover enough of the planet. Monthly analyses are sometimes updated when additional data becomes available, and the results are subject to change.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Related links</h4>
<p>For more information on NASA GISS&#39;s monthly temperature analysis, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/" target="_blank">data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp</a>.</p>
<p>For more information about NASA GISS, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">www.giss.nasa.gov</a>.</p>
<h4>Media contacts</h4>
<p>Michael Cabbage<br />
NASA&#39;s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y.<br />
212-678-5516<br />
mcabbage@nasa.gov</p>
<p>Leslie McCarthy<br />
NASA&#39;s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, N.Y.<br />
212-678-5507<br />
leslie.m.mccarthy@nasa.gov</p>
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:46:19 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2519/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2519/NASA nears finish line of annual study of changing Antarctic ice<p>Operation IceBridge, NASA&rsquo;s airborne survey of changes in polar ice, is closing in on the end of its eighth consecutive Antarctic deployment, and will likely tie its 2012 campaign record for the most research flights carried out during a single Antarctic season.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We are probing the most remote corners of Spaceship Earth to learn more about changes that affect all of us locally, such us how ice sheets are contributing to sea level rise,&rdquo; said NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman on her very first flight over Antarctica with the IceBridge team on Nov. 17. &ldquo;At NASA we explore: not only space, but also our home planet.&rdquo;</p>
<figure class='column-width embedded_video video_player_container'>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v3yMHHzLTCc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption>
Flying low over the Earth&rsquo;s southernmost continent, Operation IceBridge is wrapping up its eighth consecutive field season of mapping the ice sheet and glaciers of Antarctica, as well as the surrounding sea ice. With more than 300 hours logged in the air over 24 science flights, the mission is considering 2016 one of the most successful seasons yet. Credits: NASA&#39;s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jefferson Beck, producer.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>&ldquo;Operation IceBridge is particularly well suited to measure changes in polar ice: it carries probably the most innovative and precise package of instruments ever flown over Antarctica,&rdquo; Newman said.</p>
<p>&quot;This campaign was possibly the best Antarctic campaign IceBridge has ever had,&rdquo; said John Sonntag, IceBridge mission scientist at NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. &quot;We flew as many flights as we did in our best prior campaigns down here, and we certainly got more science return out of each flight than we have before, due to steadily improving instrumentation and also to some exceptionally good weather in the Weddell Sea that favored our sea ice flights.&quot;</p>
<p>Antarctica is heading into austral summer, a period of rapid sea ice melt in the Southern Ocean. But this year the sea ice loss has been particularly swift and the Antarctic sea ice extent is currently at the lowest level for this time of year ever recorded in the satellite record, which began in 1979.</p>
<div class='image_module right' style='width:320pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<img alt='Iceberg surrounded by sea ice' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1035' style='width:320pxpx'>
<figcaption>
An iceberg surrounded by sea ice in the Bellingshausen Sea, as seen from aboard NASA&#39;s DC-8 scientific aircraft Oct. 22, 2016. Credit: NASA/John Sonntag.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>&quot;We flew over the Bellingshausen Sea many times during this campaign and saw that areas that are typically covered by sea ice were just open water this year,&rdquo; said Nathan Kurtz, IceBridge&rsquo;s project scientist and a sea ice researcher at NASA Goddard. &quot;It is a reminder that it is important that we continue the time series of IceBridge measurements in the area so that we can measure both changes in sea ice extent and in sea ice thickness to assess the future trajectory of the ice pack and its impact on the climate.&rdquo;</p>
<p>IceBridge expanded its reach this year, covering a vast swath of Antarctica &ndash; from the Ruppert Coast in West Antarctica to Recovery Glacier in the eastern half of the continent, plus the Weddell and Bellingshausen seas. Additionally, IceBridge flew twice over the South Pole, an area rarely measured since satellites don&rsquo;t overfly it.</p>
<p>During its six weeks of operations from its base in Punta Arenas, in the southernmost tip of Chile, IceBridge carried out 24 flights over Antarctica. In total, IceBridge&rsquo;s airborne laboratory and team flew 308 hours.</p>
<p>&quot;We are very satisfied that we flew all of our baseline flights and most of our high-priority ones,&rdquo; said Joe MacGregor, IceBridge deputy project scientist and glaciologist at Goddard. &quot;We flew to places we had never surveyed comprehensively before or had only flown once, like the Abbott Ice Shelf, and revisited some of our classic targets, like the ever-changing Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers.&rdquo;</p>
<div class='image_module right' style='width:320pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<img alt='Large rift' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1036' style='width:320pxpx'>
<figcaption>
Large rift near the Pine Island Glacier tongue, West Antarctica, as seen during an IceBridge flight on Nov. 4, 2016. Credit: NASA/Nathan Kurtz.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>One of this year&rsquo;s missions flew over a massive rift in the Antarctic Peninsula&rsquo;s Larsen C Ice Shelf. Ice shelves are the floating parts of ice streams and glaciers, and they buttress the grounded ice behind them; when ice shelves collapse, the ice behind accelerates toward the ocean, where it then adds to sea level rise. Larsen C neighbors a smaller ice shelf that disintegrated in 2002 after developing a rift similar to the one now growing in Larsen C.</p>
<p>The IceBridge scientists measured the Larsen C fracture to be about 70 miles long, more than 300 feet wide and about a third of a mile deep. The crack completely cuts through the ice shelf but it does not go all the way across it &ndash; once it does, it will produce an iceberg roughly the size of the state of Delaware.</p>
<p>&quot;It&rsquo;s a large rift on an ice shelf whose future we are curious about. Inevitably, when you see it in satellite imagery or from a plane, you wonder what is going to happen when it breaks off,&rdquo; MacGregor said. &quot;However, large icebergs calve from ice shelves regularly and they normally do not lead to ice-shelf collapse. The growth of this rift likely indicates that the portion of the ice shelf downstream of the rift is no longer holding back any grounded ice.&rdquo;</p>
<p>As with every field season, IceBridge collaborated with other science teams: this year, IceBridge flew under one of ESA&rsquo;s (the European Space Agency) CryoSat-2 satellite&rsquo;s tracks and coordinated with a team from the British Antarctic Survey that was also conducting aerial surveys of the frozen continent.</p>
<div class='image_module left' style='width:320pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<img alt='NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman is interviewed' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1037' style='width:320pxpx'>
<figcaption>
NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman is interviewed by a film crew shortly before departing on her first Operation IceBridge science flight out of Punta Arenas, Chile, on Nov. 17, 2016. Credit: NASA/Maria-Jose Vi&ntilde;as.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>&quot;The British group began their campaign after we did, but targeted some of the areas we flew with a similar instrument suite. Once we process our data and they process theirs, we&rsquo;ll be able to compare our measurements and combine them to form a better picture of Antarctica,&rdquo; MacGregor said. &quot;We also flew over their on-continent bases, providing them with images of nearby areas as they prepare their operations for this field season.&rdquo;</p>
<p>During her stay in Punta Arenas, Newman met with Chilean researchers and students to discuss future opportunities with Chile.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We love working with our Chilean colleagues: from the northern Atacama desert for astrobiology research to its southernmost city, Punta Arenas, to study Antarctic land and sea ice,&rdquo; Newman said. &ldquo;Given this strong partnership, we&rsquo;re looking forward to exciting future collaborations.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In addition to the NASA deputy administrator, IceBridge also welcomed U.S. Ambassador to Chile Carol Perez. Other guest participation included visitors from the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Chile; six U.S. teachers currently living and teaching in Chile; a Facebook representative; a visual artist; two photographers; and several journalists from various media outlets.</p>
<p>IceBridge researchers and Maggie Kane, a high school science teacher from Colorado who was embedded in the Antarctic campaign through the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States&rsquo; PolarTREC program, participated in 70 chats directly from the plane with classrooms in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Chile, reaching over 1,800 students. Kane also gave several talks on IceBridge&rsquo;s research to Chilean students in Punta Arenas and Santiago.</p>
<p>The mission of Operation IceBridge is to collect data on changing polar land and sea ice and maintain continuity of measurements between NASA&#39;s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) missions. The original ICESat mission ended in 2009, and its successor, ICESat-2, is scheduled for launch in 2018. Operation IceBridge, which began in 2009, is currently funded until 2019. The planned overlap with ICESat-2 will help scientists validate the satellite&rsquo;s measurements. For more about Operation IceBridge and to follow future campaigns, visit:</p>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge" target="_blank">NASA&#39;s&nbsp;Operation IceBridge&nbsp;website</a></b></li>
</ul>
Fri, 18 Nov 2016 19:32:13 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2518/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2518/From NYC to Rio: NASA helps cities address climate risks<p>After Hurricane Sandy rocked the U.S. East Coast in 2012, the New York City government set out to repair the city &mdash; and asked for NASA&rsquo;s help. The mayor&rsquo;s office didn&rsquo;t want NASA scientists out there with hammers or hard hats. Instead, they asked for information to include in their blueprints on how climate change, specifically increased risk of flooding, will affect the nation&rsquo;s most populous city.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The city is not only repairing the city to the current risks of coastal flooding, but also reflecting future projections of coastal flooding due to rising global sea levels,&rdquo; said Cynthia Rosenzweig, head of the Climate Impacts Group at NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. &ldquo;Our projections from NASA&rsquo;s and other climate models and data are actually used in the city&rsquo;s guidelines for renovations and rebuilding after the hurricane.&rdquo;</p>
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<iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8GiFXDmPWfQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption>
Researchers and city officials from two of the world&rsquo;s major metropolises, New York City and Rio de Janeiro, are coming together to share their insights and solutions against specific climate risks afflicting both their cities&mdash; sea level rise, increased temperatures and changes in water quality.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It isn&rsquo;t just New York City that&rsquo;s interested in these questions about the local impacts of climate change. More than 4,000 miles away in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the city&rsquo;s leaders were looking to address a similar climate question: How can they prepare for the effects of climate change on their city?</p>
<p>Now, researchers and city officials from two of the world&rsquo;s major metropolises, New York City and Rio de Janeiro, are coming together to share their insights and solutions to mitigate against specific climate risks afflicting both their cities &mdash; sea level rise, increased temperatures and changes in water quality. The gathering will be an in-depth training workshop where researchers can share the utility of NASA satellite data and climate models as well as how they are working with various city governments.</p>
<p>The workshop takes place this week at GISS with participants from GISS, NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland; the Urban Climate Change Research Network at Columbia University, New York; Rio de Janeiro City Hall; and the NYC Mayor&rsquo;s Office of Recovery and Resiliency. A public educational webinar discussing how the city of Rio de Janeiro is responding to the challenge of monitoring water quality and addressing sea-level rise will take place on&nbsp;<a href="https://gsfc610.adobeconnect.com/riowebinar3/" target="_blank">Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. EST</a>.</p>
<h4>Similar risks in similar cities</h4>
<p>&ldquo;Cities are stepping up to be the first responders to climate change risks around the world,&rdquo; said Rosenzweig, who currently serves as the co-chair for the New York City Panel on Climate Change convened by the city&rsquo;s mayor.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Rosenzweig studies the effect of climate change in cities and urban areas and also helps lead the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN). Based at the Columbia University Earth Institute in New York City, the UCCRN consists of more than 750 researchers and practitioners around the world, with regional hubs across the world including a hub in Rio de Janeiro. The UCCRN team hopes to replicate these collaborative workshops with other cities in the network such as Paris; Canberra, Australia; Philadelphia; and Shanghai.</p>
<p>Across the globe, many cities are facing similar climate risks. Coastal cities like New York City and Rio de Janeiro are most susceptible to sea level rise. Sea level rise is influenced by several factors: the melting of ice, thermal expansion of ocean water, and the movement of local ocean currents and melting of glaciers in the polar regions, to name a few.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a big science challenge to project sea level rise for any given city because we have to take all of those factors into account,&rdquo; Rosenzweig said. &ldquo;It will be helpful to exchange methods on how we do sea level rise projections and how the scientists in Rio project sea level.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Cities are also urban heat islands, a phenomenon in which the center of the city is warmer than the surrounding regions, placing stressful conditions on people who live there. Cities tend to be warmer because city infrastructure, such as buildings, tends to absorb more radiation. They also have less vegetation for evapotranspiration and emit more heat. Researchers will show how the heat content in cities can be monitored through tools such as the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/landsat" target="_blank">joint NASA and U.S. Geological Survey&rsquo;s Landsat 8 satellite</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly, municipalities also need to maintain acceptable water quality for their inhabitants. Runoff from agriculture and urban sewage can result in elevated nutrients in rivers and streams. An excess of nutrients can cause enhanced phytoplankton growth, known as eutrophication. Localized changes in phytoplankton populations can drastically affect the food chain, water clarity and human health. Human-induced eutrophication can have tremendous impact on fisheries, aquaculture and tourism.</p>
<p>For many water quality improvement programs, scientists need to be able to monitor the aquatic conditions such as water clarity, how much sediment is present and phytoplankton amounts. At the workshop, scientists will share how these important parameters can be observed by satellite instruments such as&nbsp;<a href="https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">NASA&rsquo;s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)</a>&nbsp;and sensors on the Aqua satellite and the Operational Land Imager (OLI) aboard the Landsat 8 satellite.</p>
<p>&ldquo;For Rio de Janeiro, this partnership is very important because it will bring us new knowledge about the city and add new techniques and methodologies. It is also gratifying to be recognized as a partner by such an important scientific agency,&rdquo; said Luiz Roberto Arueira, director of city information at Pereira Passos Institute in the Rio de Janeiro City Hall and a key player in developing a relationship between NASA and the city of Rio de Janeiro.</p>
<p>Back in December 2015, NASA entered into a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-to-aid-disaster-preparedness-in-rio-de-janeiro" target="_blank">formal partnership</a>&nbsp;with the City of Rio de Janeiro for sharing Earth-observing data and methods, but this will be the first larger in-person gathering.</p>
<p>Several researchers from Pereira Passos Institute from Rio City Hall will be attending the workshop. The Pereira Passos Institute is responsible for strategic planning, public policy integration and mapping. Additionally, New York City officials will participate in a roundtable discussion to talk about what science information is useful when they are making city policies.</p>
<p>The workshop is co-led by the Urban Climate Change Research Network (<a href="http://uccrn.org/" target="_blank">UCCRN</a>), whose hub in Rio will help to spread the knowledge gained to other cities in Brazil and Latin America.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is science in action. It connects researchers in NASA and Rio de Janeiro working on these challenging environmental issues with the people who are in the city&rsquo;s government and actually involved in making guidelines and rules,&rdquo; said Dalia Kirschbaum, a scientist at NASA Goddard who is helping lead the Rio de Janeiro partnership.</p>
<h4>Related links</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://gsfc610.adobeconnect.com/riowebinar3/" target="_blank">Watch the webinar on Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. EST</a></li>
<li><a href="http://uccrn.org/" target="_blank">More information on the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-to-aid-disaster-preparedness-in-rio-de-janeiro" target="_blank">More information on the formal NASA and Rio de Janeiro partnership</a></li>
<li><a href="http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/610/applied-sciences/nasa_rio_partnership_portugues.html" target="_blank">NASA Goddard Applied Sciences page on the partnership with Rio de Janeiro</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.armazemdedados.rio.rj.gov.br/" target="_blank">More information on the Armaz&eacute;m de&nbsp;Pereira Passos Institute</a></li>
</ul>
Wed, 16 Nov 2016 21:41:19 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2517/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2517/Extremely warm 2015-’16 winter cyclone weakened Arctic sea ice pack<p>A large cyclone that crossed the Arctic in December 2015 brought so much heat and humidity to this otherwise frigid and dry environment that it thinned and shrank the sea ice cover during a time of the year when the ice should have been growing thicker and stronger, a NASA study found.</p>
<figure class='column-width embedded_video video_player_container'>
<iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MhF9nLdZ7ZY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption>
A large cyclone that crossed the Arctic in December 2015 brought so much heat and humidity to this otherwise frigid environment that it thinned and shrank the sea ice cover during a time when the ice should have been growing. Credit: NASA&#39;s Goddard Space Flight Center/Kathryn Mersmann, producer. <a href="http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12421" target="_blank">Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard&#39;s Scientific Visualization Studio</a>.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The cyclone formed on Dec. 28, 2015, in the middle of the North Atlantic, and traveled to the United Kingdom and Iceland before entering the Arctic on Dec. 30, lingering in the area for several days. During the height of the storm, the mean air temperatures in the Kara and Barents seas region, north of Russia and Norway, were 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) warmer than what the average had been for this time of the year since 2003.</p>
<p>The extremely warm and humid air mass associated with the cyclone caused an amount of energy equivalent to the power used in one year by half a million American homes to be transferred from the atmosphere to the surface of the sea ice in the Kara-Barents region. As a result, the area&rsquo;s sea ice thinned by almost 4 inches (10 centimeters) on average.</p>
<p>At the same time, the storm winds pushed the edges of the sea ice north, compacting the ice pack.</p>
<p>&ldquo;During the cyclone, the sea ice retreated northward, causing a loss in coverage equaling the area of the state of Florida,&rdquo; said Linette Boisvert, lead author of the study and a sea ice scientist at NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.</p>
<p>Boisvert and her colleagues used data from NASA&rsquo;s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite to study the atmospheric effects of this storm on the sea ice, specifically the evolution of air temperature and humidity during the storm. They also compared the cyclone to other extreme events from past winters since 2003, the year AIRS began to collect data.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Measured against other extreme winter events that have happened in the Kara-Barents seas region over the AIRS period, this one was the warmest,&rdquo; Boisvert said. &ldquo;The AIRS time period also coincides with the warmest decade on record, so this storm being the hottest is a big deal.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The researchers also used a reanalysis of wind speeds, satellite passive microwave data of Arctic sea ice concentration and a sea ice thickness model to study how the storm impacted the sea ice cover.</p>
<figure class='column-width embedded_video video_player_container'>
<iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/A561WmydceE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption>
This visualization starts with a global view of the Western Hemisphere. The viewer then moves in over the Arctic on Dec. 27, 2015. Winds and air temperature fade in as time moves forward. A low pressure system then moves in, pushing warm air ahead of it. The warm air moves over the Arctic sea ice, contributing to dramatic melting of the sea ice concentration in this region. Credit: NASA Goddard&#39;s Scientific Visualization Studio/Alex Kekesi, data visualizer. <a href="http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4520" target="_blank">Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard&#39;s Scientific Visualization Studio</a>.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Usually, during the Arctic winter the atmosphere and surface of the ice are very cold, while the exposed ocean waters are warmer, so there&rsquo;s a heat transfer from the ocean to atmosphere. During the cyclone, the pattern was inverted and heat traveled from the atmosphere to the surface of the ice. After the storm, the weather in the Kara-Barents seas region remained warmer than average for January, leading scientists to believe this cyclone prevented the sea ice from recovering.</p>
<p>During the months of January, February and March of this year, Arctic sea ice presented the lowest monthly extents in the satellite record, which were largely driven by abnormally low ice levels in the Kara and Barents seas.</p>
<p>Model projections of Arctic sea ice show that ice thickness will continue to decline over the next decades, making the sea ice cover even more vulnerable to winter storms.</p>
<p>&ldquo;In our study, we found that the thinnest ice was completely melted out by the storm,&rdquo; said Alek Petty, a co-author of the study and a sea ice researcher at Goddard. &ldquo;Maybe in the coming years, if we start with a thinner winter ice pack we&rsquo;ll see extreme events like these cause even bigger melt-outs across the Arctic.&rdquo;</p>
Tue, 15 Nov 2016 16:35:12 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2516/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2516/First GRACE Follow-On satellite completes construction<p>Construction is now complete on the first of the two satellites for NASA&rsquo;s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission, planned for launch in the December 2017/January 2018 timeframe. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>The satellite, built by Airbus Defence and Space at its manufacturing facility in Friedrichshafen, Germany, will spend the next several months undergoing testing at the IABG test center in Ottobrunn, near Munich. The second GRACE-FO satellite will be ready for testing in the near future.</p>
<p>GRACE-FO is a successor to NASA&rsquo;s GRACE mission, which launched in 2002 and is still in operation. The twin GRACE-FO satellites, which operate in tandem, will continue GRACE&#39;s legacy of tracking Earth&#39;s mass redistribution and monitoring changes in underground water storage, ice sheets, glaciers,&nbsp;and sea level. These measurements provide a unique view of Earth&#39;s climate and have far-reaching benefits to society and the world&#39;s population.</p>
<div class='image_module left' style='width:768pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<img alt='Artist&amp;rsquo;s rendering of the twin satellites that will compose NASA&amp;rsquo;s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission.' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1028' style='width:768pxpx'>
<figcaption>
Artist&rsquo;s rendering of the twin satellites that will compose NASA&rsquo;s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p>As they travel together around Earth, the GRACE satellites constantly take very exact measurements of the distance between them, which changes as Earth&rsquo;s gravitational pull varies. A global positioning system and a microwave ranging system measure the distance between the satellites to within one micron. Variations in gravitational pull are caused by local changes in Earth&#39;s mass. Masses of water, ice, air and solid Earth can be moved by weather patterns, seasonal change, climate change, and even tectonic events such as large earthquakes. From the GRACE data, scientists are able to map Earth&rsquo;s gravitational field monthly.</p>
<p>&quot;GRACE data have revolutionized our understanding of Earth&rsquo;s water cycle and how water and ice are distributed on the planet,&quot; said Frank Webb, JPL GRACE-FO program manager. &quot;From it, we can see clear trends in the ice-mass loss in the Arctic and the Antarctic, and clear trends in droughts in South America, Australia and Asia. These are key indicators of how the planet is responding to changes in our climate.&quot; For example, GRACE has been instrumental in documenting the loss of groundwater in California and around the world.</p>
<p>The GRACE-FO satellites will test a new inter-satellite instrument called a laser ranging interferometer, developed by a German/American joint collaboration, for use in future generations of gravitational research satellites.</p>
<p>The GRACE-FO satellites will be launched together into a polar orbit at an altitude of about 300 miles (500 kilometers) and at a distance of about 140 miles (220 kilometers) apart.</p>
<p>Over the course of the five-year GRACE-FO mission, the satellites will provide an updated measurement of Earth&rsquo;s gravitational field every 30 days. In addition, each of the satellites will supply up to 200 profiles of temperature distribution and water vapor content for the atmosphere and the ionosphere daily.</p>
<p>GRACE-FO is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ). NASA&rsquo;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, manages the mission for NASA&rsquo;s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.</p>
<p>For more information on GRACE-FO, visit:&nbsp;</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">http://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>For more on GRACE, visit:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov" target="_blank">http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace" target="_blank">http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace</a></li>
</ul>
<h4><b>Media contact</b></h4>
<p>Alan Buis<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California<br />
818-354-0474<br />
Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov</p>
Mon, 14 Nov 2016 22:54:34 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2515/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2515/Getting to know the Getz Ice Shelf<p>As scientists and crew with NASA&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html" target="_blank">Operation IceBridge</a>&nbsp;mission prepared for a research flight on Nov.&nbsp;5, 2016, the weather in Punta Arenas, Chile, was cold, wet&nbsp;and windy. But when they reached their survey site in West Antarctica, skies were clear and winds were calm&mdash;a perfect day for scientists to collect data over the Getz Ice Shelf.</p>
<p>IceBridge, now in its eighth year, continues to build a record of how ice is responding to changes in the polar environment. The Getz Ice Shelf in West Antarctica is one area that scientists try to examine each year. &ldquo;Getz is an ice shelf that has been experiencing some of the highest&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130613.html" target="_blank">basal melt rates</a>&nbsp;of the Antarctic ice shelves,&rdquo; said Nathan Kurtz, IceBridge project scientist and a sea ice researcher at NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center.</p>
<p>The image&nbsp;above shows&nbsp;a view&nbsp;of Getz as photographed on Nov. 5 from a NASA research airplane by Jeremy Harbeck, a sea ice scientist at NASA Goddard. The image shows ice in the process of calving from the front of the shelf, soon to become an iceberg.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Kurtz notes that the team has flown over the Getz Ice Shelf many times before. Flight paths are often exact repeats of those flown in previous years, which helps scientists understand how the height of the ice surface changes over time. This year, new flights over Getz were added to the existing observations. Scientists mapped the bathymetry (shape and depth of the seafloor) below the ice shelf, and they mapped the ice surface and bedrock upstream of the grounding line.</p>
<p>The flight over Getz is just one of a number of key areas flown during the IceBridge campaign. Each flight plan is prioritized in order of importance: baseline (the highest priority), high, medium, and low. The flight on Nov.&nbsp;5 over Getz, for example, was categorized as &ldquo;high&rdquo; priority. Since the start of 2016 science flights on Oct.14, the team has flown six out of eight baseline missions, eight out of 15 high priority lines, and one medium and low priority mission each. Research flights for the season continue through Nov. 18.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We are in pretty good shape so far, having flown so many missions due to a combination of favorable weather, no major airplane issues, and all instruments operating well,&rdquo; Kurtz said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re about four weeks into the campaign, and it&rsquo;s possible we could tie the record of most flights flown with Operation IceBridge if things continue to go well.&rdquo;</p>
Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:59:52 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2514/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2514/NASA small satellites will take a fresh look at Earth<p>Beginning this month, NASA is launching a suite of six next-generation, Earth-observing small satellite missions to demonstrate innovative new approaches for studying our changing planet.</p>
<p>These small satellites range in size from a loaf of bread to a small washing machine and weigh from a few to 400 pounds (180 kilograms). Their small size keeps development and launch costs down as they often hitch a ride to space as a &ldquo;secondary payload&rdquo; on another mission&rsquo;s rocket &mdash; providing an economical avenue for testing new technologies and conducting science.</p>
<p>&ldquo;NASA is increasingly using small satellites to tackle important science problems across our mission portfolio,&rdquo; said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA&rsquo;s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. &ldquo;They also give us the opportunity to test new technological innovations in space and broaden the involvement of students and researchers to get hands-on experience with space systems.&rdquo;</p>
<p><div class='image_module right' style='width:768pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<a class='' href='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1017' target='_blank'>
<img alt='CYGNSS' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1017' style='width:768pxpx'>
</a>
<figcaption>
One of eight microsatellites in the CYGNSS constellation under construction. The mission will collect data to improve hurricane intensity forecasts. Credit: University of Michigan.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>Small-satellite technology has led to innovations in how scientists approach Earth observations from space. These new missions, five of which are scheduled to launch during the next several months, will debut new methods to measure hurricanes, Earth&rsquo;s energy budget, aerosols and weather.</p>
<p>&ldquo;NASA is expanding small satellite technologies and using low-cost, small satellites, miniaturized instruments, and robust constellations to advance Earth science and provide societal benefit through applications,&rdquo; said Michael Freilich, director of NASA&rsquo;s Earth Science Division in Washington.</p>
<h4>Four CubeSats in three launches</h4>
<p>Scheduled to launch this month, RAVAN, the Radiometer Assessment using Vertically Aligned Nanotubes, is a <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/cubesats" target="_blank">CubeSat</a> that will demonstrate new technology for detecting slight changes in Earth&#39;s energy budget at the top of the atmosphere &mdash; essential measurements for understanding greenhouse gas effects on climate. RAVAN is led by Bill Swartz at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.</p>
<p>In spring 2017, two CubeSats are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station for a detailed look at clouds. Data from the satellites will help improve scientists&rsquo; ability to study and understand clouds and their role in climate and weather.</p>
<p>IceCube, developed by Dong Wu at NASA&#39;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, will use a new, miniature, high-frequency microwave radiometer to measure cloud ice. HARP, the Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter, developed by Vanderlei Martins at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in Baltimore, will measure airborne particles and the distribution of cloud droplet sizes with a new method that looks at a target from multiple perspectives.</p>
<p>In early 2017, MiRaTA &mdash; the Microwave Radiometer Technology Acceleration mission &mdash; is scheduled to launch into space with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration&rsquo;s Joint Polar Satellite System-1. MiRaTA packs many of the capabilities of a large weather satellite into a spacecraft the size of a shoebox, according to Principal Investigator Kerri Cahoy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. MiRaTA&#39;s miniature sensors will collect data on temperature, water vapor and cloud ice that can be used in weather forecasting and storm tracking.</p>
<p>The RAVAN, HARP, IceCube and MiRaTA CubeSat missions are funded and managed by NASA&rsquo;s <a href="https://esto.nasa.gov" target="_blank">Earth Science Technology Office</a> (<a href="https://esto.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">ESTO</a>) in the Earth Science Division. ESTO supports technologists at NASA centers, industry and academia to develop and refine new methods for observing Earth from space, from information systems to new components and instruments.</p>
<p>&quot;The affordability and rapid build times of these CubeSat projects allow for more risk to be taken, and the more risk we take now the more capable and reliable the instruments will be in the future,&quot; said Pamela Millar, ESTO flight validation lead. &ldquo;These small satellites are changing the way we think about making instruments and measurements. The cube has inspired us to think more outside the box.&quot;</p>
<h4>Two small-satelite constellations</h4>
<p>NASA&rsquo;s early investment in these new Earth-observing technologies has matured to produce two robust science missions, the first of which is set to launch in December.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/cygnss" target="_blank">CYGNSS</a> &mdash; the Cyclone, Global Navigation Satellite System &mdash; will be NASA&rsquo;s first Earth science small satellite constellation. Eight identical satellites will fly in formation to measure wind intensity over the ocean, providing new insights into tropical cyclones. Its novel approach uses reflections from GPS signals off the ocean surface to monitor surface winds and air-sea interactions in rapidly evolving cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons throughout the tropics. CYGNSS, led by Chris Ruf at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is targeted to launch on Dec. 12 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Derek Posselt of NASA&rsquo;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, is the deputy principal investigator.</p>
<p>Earlier this year <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-selects-instruments-to-study-air-pollution-tropical-cyclones" target="_blank">NASA announced</a> the start of a new mission to study the insides of hurricanes with a constellation of 12 CubeSats. TROPICS &mdash; the Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats -- will use radiometer instruments based on the MiRaTA CubeSat that will make frequent measurements of temperature and water vapor profiles throughout the life cycle of individual storms. William Blackwell at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington leads the mission.</p>
<p>CYGNSS and TROPICS both benefited from early ESTO technology investments. These Earth Venture missions are small, targeted science investigations that complement NASA&rsquo;s larger Earth research missions. The rapidly developed, cost-constrained Earth Venture projects are competitively selected and funded by NASA&rsquo;s Earth System Science Pathfinder program within the Earth Science Division.</p>
<p>Small spacecraft and satellites are helping NASA advance scientific and human exploration, reduce the cost of new space missions, and expand access to space. Through technological innovation, small satellites enable entirely new architectures for a wide range of activities in space with the potential for exponential jumps in transformative science.</p>
<p>For video and animations of NASA small satellite projects, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12411" target="_blank"><b>http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12411</b></a></p>
<p>For more information about NASA&#39;s small satellite projects, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/smallsats" target="_blank"><b>http://www.nasa.gov/smallsats</b></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Media contacts</h4>
<p>Alan Buis<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California<br />
818-354-0474<br />
Alan.Buis@jpl.nasa.gov</p>
<p>Steve Cole<br />
NASA Headquarters, Washington<br />
202-358-0918<br />
Stephen.E.Cole@nasa.gov</p>
Mon, 07 Nov 2016 18:55:54 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2512/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2512/See how Arctic sea ice is losing its bulwark against warming summers<p><link href="http://climate.nasa.gov/assets/mbcms/vendor/twentytwenty.css" media="screen" rel="stylesheet" />
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<h3 class='curtain_title'>
Retreating older Arctic ice
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<h4 class='curtain_subtitle'>
September 1984 and September 2016
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Compare the extension of older sea ice in the Arctic in September 1984 and September 2016. The older ice is thicker and more resistant to melt than new ice, so it protects the sea ice cap during warm summers. In September 1984, there were 1.86 million square kilometers of old ice (4&nbsp;years or older) left throughout the Arctic sea ice cap during its yearly minimum extent; in September 2016, there were only 110,000 square kilometers of older sea ice left. Credit: NASA&#39;s Scientific Visualization Studio.
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</section>Arctic sea ice, the vast sheath of frozen seawater floating on the Arctic Ocean and its neighboring seas, has been hit with a double whammy over the past decades: as its extent shrank, the oldest and thickest ice has either thinned or melted away, leaving the sea ice cap more vulnerable to the warming ocean and atmosphere.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What we&rsquo;ve seen over the years is that the older ice is disappearing,&rdquo; said Walt Meier, a sea ice researcher at NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. &ldquo;This older, thicker ice is like the bulwark of sea ice: a warm summer will melt all the young, thin ice away but it can&rsquo;t completely get rid of the older ice. But this older ice is becoming weaker because there&rsquo;s less of it and the remaining old ice is more broken up and thinner, so that bulwark is not as good as it used to be.&rdquo;</p>
<figure class='embedded_video video_player_container wide'>
<iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8auMIfF50Ng" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption>
This animation shows the annual change in sea ice age in the Arctic at each year&#39;s minimum extent. Younger sea ice is shown in a dark shade of blue while the ice that is four years old or older is shown as white. A bar graph displayed in the lower right corner quantifies the area covered by the ice in each age category on the day of the annual minimum. In addition, memory bars (shown in green) portray the maximum annual value for each age range seen since January 1, 1984 on the day of the annual sea ice minimum extent. Credit: NASA&rsquo;s Scientific Visualization Studio/Cindy Starr.&nbsp;<a href="https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/4489" target="_blank">Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard&#39;s Scientific Visualization Studio</a>.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Direct measurements of sea ice thickness are sporadic and incomplete across the Arctic, so scientists have developed estimates of sea ice age and tracked their evolution from 1984 to the present. Now, a new NASA visualization of the age of Arctic sea ice shows how sea ice has been growing and shrinking, spinning, melting in place and drifting out of the Arctic for the past three decades.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ice age is a good analog for ice thickness because basically, as ice gets older it gets thicker,&rdquo; Meier said. &ldquo;This is due to the ice generally growing more in the winter than it melts in the summer.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the early 2000s, scientists at the University of Colorado developed a way to monitor Arctic sea ice movement and the evolution of its age by using data from a variety of sources, but primarily satellite passive microwave instruments. These instruments gauge brightness temperature: a measure of the microwave energy emitted by sea ice that is influenced by the ice&rsquo;s temperature, salinity, surface texture and the layer of snow on top of the sea ice. Each floe of sea ice has a characteristic brightness temperature, so the researchers developed an approach that would identify and track ice floes in successive passive microwave images as they moved across the Arctic. The system also uses information from drifting buoys as well as weather data.</p>
<p><figure class='embedded_video video_player_container wide'>
<iframe width="768" height="432" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vj1G9gqhkYA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption>
Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years, it&rsquo;s becoming younger and thinner as well. In this animation, where the ice cover almost looks gelatinous as it pulses through the seasons, cryospheric scientist Dr. Walt Meier of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describes how the sea ice has undergone fundamental changes during the era of satellite measurements. Credit: NASA&rsquo;s Scientific Visualization Studio/Cindy Starr.
</figcaption>
</figure>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s like bookkeeping; we&rsquo;re keeping track of sea ice as it moves around, up until it melts in place or leaves the Arctic,&rdquo; said Meier, who is a collaborator of the group at the University of Colorado and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, the center that currently maintains the Arctic sea ice age data.</p>
<h4>Ice in motion</h4>
<p>Every year, sea ice forms in the winter and melts in the summer. The sea ice that survives the melt season thickens with each passing year: newly formed ice grows to about 3 to 7 feet of thickness during its first year, while multi-year ice (sea ice that has survived several melt seasons) is about 10 to 13 feet thick. The older and thicker ice is more resistant to melt and less likely to get pushed around by winds or broken up by waves or storms.</p>
<p>Arctic sea ice has not only been shrinking in surface area in recent years, it&rsquo;s becoming younger and thinner as well. In this animation, where the ice cover almost looks gelatinous as it pulses through the seasons, cryospheric scientist Dr. Walt Meier of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center describes how the sea ice has undergone fundamental changes during the era of satellite measurements.</p>
<p>&ldquo;On a week-to-week basis, there are weather systems that come through, so the ice isn&rsquo;t moving at a constant rate: sometimes the Beaufort Gyre reverses or breaks down for a couple weeks or so, the Transpolar Drift Stream shifts in its direction &hellip; but the overall pattern is this one,&rdquo; Meier said. &ldquo;Then the spring melt starts and the ice shrinks back, disappearing from the peripheral seas.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The new animation shows two main bursts of thick ice loss: the first one, starting in 1989 and lasting a few years, was due to a switch in the Arctic Oscillation, an atmospheric circulation pattern, which shrunk the Beaufort Gyre and enhanced the Transpolar Drift Stream, flushing more sea ice than usual out of the Arctic. The second peak in ice loss started in the mid-2000s.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Unlike in the 1980s, it&rsquo;s not so much as ice being flushed out &mdash; though that&rsquo;s still going on too,&rdquo; Meier said. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s happening now more is that the old ice is melting within the Arctic Ocean during the summertime. One of the reasons is that the multiyear ice used to be a pretty consolidated ice pack and now we&rsquo;re seeing relatively smaller chunks of old ice interspersed with younger ice. These isolated floes of thicker ice are much easier to melt.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve lost most of the older ice: In the 1980s, multiyear ice made up 20 percent of the sea ice cover. Now it&rsquo;s only about 3 percent,&rdquo; Meier said. &ldquo;The older ice was like the insurance policy of the Arctic sea ice pack: as we lose it, the likelihood for a largely ice-free summer in the Arctic increases.&rdquo;</p>
Thu, 03 Nov 2016 15:18:20 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2510/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2510/New, space-based view of human-made carbon dioxide<p>Scientists have produced the first global maps of human emissions of carbon dioxide ever made solely from satellite observations of the greenhouse gas. The maps, based on data from NASA&#39;s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite and generated with a new data-processing technique, agree well with inventories of known carbon dioxide emissions.</p>
<p>No satellite before OCO-2 was capable of measuring carbon dioxide in fine enough detail to allow researchers to create maps of human emissions from the satellite data alone. Instead, earlier maps also incorporated estimates from economic data and modeling results.</p>
<p><div class='image_module right' style='width:434pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<a class='' href='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1013' target='_blank'>
<img alt='Human carbon dioxide emissions over Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa.' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1013' style='width:434pxpx'>
</a>
<figcaption>
Human carbon dioxide emissions over Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa. Values range from 3 parts per million CO2 below background levels (navy blue) to 3 parts per million above (pale yellow). High emissions over Germany and Poland (top center) and Kuwait and Iraq (right) mostly come from fossil fuel burning, but over sub-Saharan Africa they mostly come from fires. Credit: FMI.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>The team of scientists from the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, produced three main maps from OCO-2 data, each centered on one of Earth&#39;s highest-emitting regions: the eastern United States, central Europe and East Asia. The maps show widespread carbon dioxide across major urban areas and smaller pockets of high emissions.</p>
<p>&quot;OCO-2 can even detect smaller, isolated emitting areas like individual cities,&quot; said research scientist Janne Hakkarainen, who led the study. &quot;It&#39;s a very powerful tool that gives new insight.&quot;</p>
<p>The results appear in a paper titled &quot;Direct Space-Based Observations of Anthropogenic CO<sub>2</sub> Emission Areas from OCO-2,&quot; published Nov. 1 in the journal <em>Geophysical Research Letters</em>.</p>
<p>Human emissions of carbon dioxide have grown at a significant rate since the Industrial Revolution, and the greenhouse gas lingers in the atmosphere for a century or more. This means that recent human output is only a tiny part of the total carbon dioxide that OCO-2 records as it looks down toward Earth&#39;s surface. &quot;Currently, the background level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 400 parts per million, and human emissions within the past year may add only something like three parts per million to that total,&quot; said Hakkarainen. The data-processing challenge, he noted, was to isolate the signature of the recent emissions from the total amount.</p>
<p>The team&#39;s new data-processing technique accounts for seasonal changes in carbon dioxide, the result of plant growth and dormancy, as well as the background carbon dioxide level. To be sure their method was correct, they compared the results with measurements of nitrogen dioxide -- another gas emitted from fossil fuel combustion -- from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument, a Dutch-Finnish instrument on NASA&#39;s Aura satellite. OMI and OCO-2 are both in the A-Train satellite constellation, so the two measurements cover the same area of Earth and are separated in time by only 15 minutes.</p>
<p>The two measurements correlated well, giving the researchers confidence that their new technique produced reliable results.</p>
<p>Coauthor Johanna Tamminen, head of the atmospheric remote sensing group at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, noted that with its comparison of OCO-2 and OMI data, &quot;The research demonstrates the possibility of analyzing joint satellite observations of carbon dioxide and other gases related to combustion processes to draw out information about the emissions sources.&quot;</p>
<p>OCO-2 Deputy Project Scientist Annmarie Eldering of NASA&#39;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, said, &quot;We are very pleased to see this research group make use of the OCO-2 data. Their analysis is a great demonstration of discovery with this new dataset.&quot; Eldering was not involved in the study.</p>
<p>For more information about OCO-2:</p>
<p><a href="https://webmail.jpl.nasa.gov/owa/14.3.279.2/scripts/premium/redir.aspx?REF=pLXknzqWbx2MDKLt5um7CJRGYVbQ_WnT0gSJFbK6xr_Z1gvWtwLUCAFodHRwOi8vb2NvLmpwbC5uYXNhLmdvdg.." target="_blank">http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov</a></p>
Tue, 01 Nov 2016 21:22:07 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2509/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2509/Art turns public eyes (and ears) toward space<p>You might not realize it, but there&rsquo;s a silent symphony overhead at any given time: NASA&rsquo;s satellites talking to Earth. They track our planet&rsquo;s weather, the height of its oceans, and even the changing mass of its ice. Those science measurements are then beamed down to ground stations, where they&rsquo;re processed for scientists studying our changing world.</p>
<p>Starting this weekend, the public is invited to an educational experience where they can hear that space chatter for themselves. The Orbit Pavilion is a sound installation opening Saturday, Oct. 29, at The Huntington Library, Art Collections &amp; Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. The installation lets listeners &ldquo;hear&rdquo; 19 of NASA&rsquo;s Earth science satellites pass over them, providing a fun and engaging way to learn about space. It originally debuted in 2015 as part of New York&rsquo;s World Science Festival.</p>
<p><div class='image_module right' style='width:768pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<a class='' href='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1008' target='_blank'>
<img alt='The exterior of the Orbit Pavilion.' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1008' style='width:768pxpx'>
</a>
<figcaption>
The exterior of the Orbit Pavilion. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>From the outside, the installation looks like a giant, futuristic seashell; enter, and you can hear as satellites approach the horizon and sail overhead. Each satellite causes speakers to generate a simulated sound, ranging from desert winds to a crashing wave or rustling leaves. A digital screen identifies the individual satellites, providing an opportunity to learn how they contribute to NASA&rsquo;s science missions.</p>
<p>Orbit is the brainchild of The Studio at JPL, an art and design workshop that develops creative ways to educate the public on space exploration. Since 2003, the team has developed everything from expoplanet travel posters to digital light sculptures, all with the aim of increasing public awareness of space science.</p>
<p>The team collaborated with Jason Klimoski and Lesley Chang of Brooklyn-based architectural firm STUDIOKCA, who conceived of and designed Orbit&rsquo;s seashell structure. They also collaborated with Shane Myrbeck, who composed Orbit&rsquo;s soundscape and engineered the audio system.</p>
<p>&ldquo;What we&rsquo;re really interested in doing is making an experience where people can walk out and understand that these satellites move above them,&rdquo; said David Delgado, a visual strategist at JPL. &ldquo;We want them to feel the presence of those satellites and know exactly where they are in the sky -- to be able to hear them and point their finger at where they are.&rdquo;</p>
<p>JPL visual strategist Dan Goods said Orbit&rsquo;s concept can be traced back to around 2005 when he and Delgado visited one of the global antenna arrays that form NASA&rsquo;s Deep Space Network. The dishes range from 112 to 230 feet (34 to 70 meters) wide, towering over the desert in Goldstone, California, an hour north of Barstow.</p>
<p>But what visitors to the Goldstone complex can&rsquo;t see, Goods and Delgado realized, were the satellites talking to those antennas.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Imagine being able to listen to those satellite locations,&rdquo; Goods remembers thinking. He could visualize a space where that was possible, but it would require a 360-degree sound system.</p>
<p>Goods later met Myrbeck, a composer and sound artist who created exactly those kinds of systems for his company, Arup. Their technology is often used to simulate the acoustics of concert halls prior to construction.</p>
<p>Myrbeck composed sounds for each of the 19 satellites. When one of the satellites passes overhead, Orbit generates both naturalistic sounds and electronic, synthesized ones. The combined effect gives each satellite a distinctive soundscape that moves along the satellite&rsquo;s trajectory.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Our senses let us perceive everything we do,&rdquo; Delgado said. &ldquo;A lot of times, people talk about satellites, and we want to see them, but can&rsquo;t. Could we allow people to use a different sense to understand where these satellites are? We liked the visceral experience of hearing things overhead.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A big hope for us is that people would leave the Orbit understanding that NASA studies the Earth,&rdquo; Goods said. &ldquo;If they get that, that&rsquo;s great. But it&rsquo;s also a starting point for their curiosity &ndash; a doorway to other questions.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Media contact</h4>
<p>Andrew Good<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br />
818-393-2433<br />
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov</p>
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 22:14:27 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2507/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2507/Studies offer new glimpse of melting under Antarctic glaciers<p>Two new studies by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine (UCI), detect the fastest ongoing rates of glacier retreat ever observed in West Antarctica and offer an unprecedented direct view of intense ice melting from the floating undersides of glaciers. The results highlight how the interaction between ocean conditions and the bedrock beneath a glacier can influence the glacier&#39;s evolution, with implications for understanding future ice loss from Antarctica and global sea level rise.</p>
<p>The two studies examined three neighboring glaciers in West Antarctica that are melting and retreating at different rates. Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers flow into the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves in the Amundsen Sea Embayment in West Antarctica, the part of the continent with the largest loss of ice mass.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL069287/full" target="_blank">study</a> led by Bernd Scheuchl of UCI, published in the journal <em>Geophysical Research Letters</em> on Aug. 28, used radar measurements from the European Space Agency&rsquo;s &nbsp;<a href="http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Copernicus/Sentinel-1" target="_blank">Sentinel-1</a> satellite and data from the earlier <a href="https://earth.esa.int/web/guest/missions/esa-operational-eo-missions/ers" target="_blank">ERS-1 and ERS-2</a> satellites to look at changes in the glaciers&#39; grounding lines &mdash; the boundary where a glacier loses contact with bedrock and begins to float on the ocean. The grounding line is important because nearly all glacier melting takes place on the underside of the glacier&#39;s floating portion, called the ice shelf. If a glacier loses mass from enhanced melting, it may start floating farther inland from its former grounding line, just as a boat stuck on a sandbar may be able to float again if a heavy cargo is removed. This is called grounding line retreat.</p>
<p><div class='image_module wide' style='width:768pxpx;'>
<figure class='inline_figure'>
<img alt='Flow speeds of Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers.' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1006' style='width:768pxpx'>
<figcaption>
Flow speeds of Pope, Smith and Kohler glaciers. Credit: NASA/EO.
</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>Scheuchl&#39;s team found a rapid retreat of Smith Glacier&#39;s grounding line of 1.24 miles (2 kilometers) per year since 1996. Pope retreated more slowly at 0.31 mile (0.5 kilometer) per year since 1996. Kohler, which had retreated at a slower pace, actually readvanced a total of 1.24 miles (2 kilometers) since 2011.</p>
<p>These differences motivated Ala Khazendar of NASA&#39;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California &mdash; a coauthor of Scheuchl&#39;s study &mdash; to measure the ice losses at the bottoms of the glaciers, which he suspected might be underlying the changes in their grounding lines. Khazendar&rsquo;s study, published Oct. 25 in the journal <em>Nature Communications</em>, used measurements of changes in the thickness and height of the ice from radar and laser altimetry instruments flown by NASA&#39;s <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/icebridge/index.html" target="_blank">Operation IceBridge</a> and earlier NASA airborne campaigns. Radar waves penetrate glaciers all the way to their base, allowing direct measurements of how the bottom profiles of the three glaciers at their grounding lines changed between 2002 and 2014. Laser signals reflect off the surface, so for the floating ice shelves, laser measurements of changes in surface elevation can be used to infer changes in ice thickness.</p>
<p>Previous studies using other techniques estimated the average melting rates at the bottom of Dotson and Crosson ice shelves to be about 40 feet per year (12 meters per year). Khazendar and his team, using their direct radar measurements, found stunning rates of ice loss from the glaciers&#39; undersides on the ocean sides of their grounding lines. The fastest-melting glacier, Smith, lost between 984 and 1,607 feet (300 and 490 meters) in thickness from 2002 to 2009 near its grounding line, or up to 230 feet per year (70 meters per year). Those years encompass a period when rapid increases in mass loss were observed around the Amundsen Sea region. The regional scale of the loss made scientists strongly suspect that an increase in the influx of ocean heat beneath the ice shelves must have taken place. &quot;Our observations provide a crucial piece of evidence to support that suspicion, as they directly reveal the intensity of ice melting at the bottom of the glaciers during that period,&quot; Khazendar said. &nbsp;</p>
<p>&quot;If I had been using data from only one instrument, I wouldn&rsquo;t have believed what I was looking at, because the thinning was so large,&rdquo; Khazendar added. However, the two IceBridge instruments, which use different observational techniques, both measured the same rapid ice loss.</p>
<p>Khazendar said Smith&#39;s fast retreat and thinning are likely related to the shape of the underlying bedrock over which it was retreating between 1996 and 2014, which sloped downward toward the continental interior, and oceanic conditions in the cavity beneath the glacier. As the grounding line retreated, warm and dense ocean water could reach the newly uncovered deeper parts of the cavity beneath the ice shelf, causing more melting. As a result, &quot;More sections of the glacier become thinner and float, meaning that the grounding line continues retreating, and so on,&rdquo; he said. The retreat of Smith might slow down as its grounding line has now reached bedrock that rises farther inland of the 2014 grounding line.</p>
<p>Pope and Kohler, by contrast, are on bedrock that slopes upward toward the interior.</p>
<p>The question remains whether other glaciers in West Antarctica will behave more like Smith Glacier or more like Pope and Kohler. Many glaciers in this sector of Antarctica are on beds that deepen farther inland, like Smith&#39;s. However, Khazendar and Scheuchl said researchers need more information on the shape of the bedrock and seafloor beneath the ice, as well as more data on ocean circulation and temperatures, to be able to better project how much ice these glaciers will contribute to the ocean in a changing climate.</p>
<p>Scheuchl&#39;s study is titled &quot;Grounding Line Retreat of Pope, Smith, and Kohler Glaciers, West Antarctica, Measured with Sentinel-1a Radar Interferometry Data.&quot; It was published in Geophysical Research Letters. Khazendar&#39;s paper, titled &quot;Rapid Submarine Ice Melting in the Grounding Zones of Ice Shelves in West Antarctica,&quot; was published in Nature Communications.</p>
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 21:45:15 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2506/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2506/NASA launches eighth year of Antarctic ice change airborne survey<p>At the southern end of the Earth, a NASA plane carrying a team of scientists and a sophisticated instrument suite to study ice is returning to surveying Antarctica. For the past eight years, Operation IceBridge has been on a mission to build a record of how polar ice is evolving in a changing environment.</p>
<p>The information IceBridge has gathered in the Antarctic, which includes data on the thickness and shape of snow and ice, as well as the topography of the land and ocean floor beneath the ocean and the ice, has allowed scientists to determine that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may be in irreversible decline. Researchers have also used IceBridge data to evaluate climate models of Antarctica and map the bedrock underneath Antarctic ice.</p>
<p>IceBridge completed the first research flight of its 2016 Antarctic campaign on October 14. The campaign will continue through November 19. This year, the mission is based in Punta Arenas, a city at the southern tip of Chile. From there, IceBridge is carrying 12-hour flights back and forth to Antarctica, covering most of the western section of the frozen continent &ndash; the region that is experiencing the fastest changes and is Antarctica&rsquo;s biggest contributor to sea level rise.</p>
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<img alt='Ice drainage from the western Antarctic Peninsula onto the northern George VI Ice Shelf on Oct. 14, 2016. Credit: NASA/John Sonntag.' src='http://climate.nasa.gov/internal_resources/1005' style='width:768pxpx'>
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Ice drainage from the western Antarctic Peninsula onto the northern George VI Ice Shelf on Oct. 14, 2016. Credit: NASA/John Sonntag.
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</div>&ldquo;We have a total of 46 flight lines to choose from this year,&rdquo; said John Sonntag, IceBridge mission scientist. &ldquo;If we&rsquo;re lucky &ndash;the weather is very tricky in Antarctica&ndash; we&rsquo;ll fly around half of them, for a total of 300 flight hours.&rdquo;</p>
<p>IceBridge&rsquo;s flights will be mostly revisits of lines flown in previous years, to monitor how the ice has evolved since the last time the mission measured it. Still, there are some variations and additions to this year&rsquo;s plans. IceBridge intends to carry a new flight in the Bellingshausen Sea that will mimic some of the tracks that an upcoming NASA satellite mission &ndash;the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2&ndash; will follow in that area. The data collected during this flight will help calibrate ICESat-2&rsquo;s future measurements.</p>
<p>&ldquo;This year, we&rsquo;ll mostly repeat our usual flight lines for sea ice, which have been proven to give us good coverage of the sea ice cover in the Weddell and Bellingshausen seas,&rdquo; said Nathan Kurtz, IceBridge&rsquo;s project scientist and a sea ice researcher at NASA&rsquo;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.</p>
<p>For land ice, IceBridge has adjusted some of its planned flights to allow scientists to better understand rapidly changing areas that are still relatively unexplored, such as the Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers and the Getz Ice Shelf. For flights elsewhere in Antarctica, the IceBridge team is also coordinating with a group of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, who will also be conducting aerial surveys of West Antarctica in some of the areas that IceBridge studies.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re interested in knowing the differences between our radar and laser systems and theirs and making best use of finite flight time,&rdquo; said Joe MacGregor, IceBridge&rsquo;s deputy project scientist and a land ice researcher at Goddard. &ldquo;If we fly portions of their flights, we&rsquo;ll be able to compare the data and collaborate in our efforts to understand the future of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. If we fly in between their tracks, then the combination of our datasets and theirs can produce a more complete picture of a changing Antarctica.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Unlike in some previous years, when IceBridge flew on smaller planes with limited loads, this campaign&rsquo;s flights will again be conducted aboard NASA&rsquo;s DC-8 roomy airborne science laboratory, which allows the mission to carry its full instrument suite. The main instrument is a laser altimeter that records minute changes in the height of the ice surface from one year to the next. Accompanying the laser are three radars that analyze the elevation and layer composition of the snow and ice, as well as the shape of the land underneath, and a high-resolution camera system. The DC-8 also carries a gravimeter and magnetometer that measure small variations in gravity and the Earth&rsquo;s magnetic field to map the ocean cavity underneath Antarctica&rsquo;s ice edges, which is essential for improving our understanding of how the ice and ocean interact. For the first time in the Antarctic, IceBridge will also be using an infrared camera to measure the surface temperature of the ice.</p>
<p>A high-school teacher from Colorado, a handful of professors and students from Universidad de Magallanes, Chile, and several media teams, among other visitors, will be flying with IceBridge during the Antarctic campaign.</p>
<p>Operation IceBridge&rsquo;s mission is to collect data on changing polar land and sea ice and maintain continuity of measurements between ICESat missions. The original ICESat mission ended in 2009, and its successor, ICESat-2, is scheduled for launch in 2018. Operation IceBridge is currently funded until 2019. The planned overlap with ICESat-2 will help scientists validate the satellite&rsquo;s measurements. NASA&#39;s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia provided the laser altimeter and the infrared camera that are being used during IceBridge&rsquo;s 2016 Antarctic spring campaign.&nbsp;The DC-8 research aircraft is based at&nbsp;NASA&rsquo;s Armstrong Flight Research Center facility in Palmdale, California. IceBridge&#39;s three radar instruments come from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets at the University of Kansas, while NASA&#39;s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, provided the Digital Mapping System, and the gravimeter and magnetometer onboard IceBridge are managed by Columbia University.</p>
<p>For more about Operation IceBridge and to follow this year&#39;s campaign, visit&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge" target="_blank">http://www.nasa.gov/icebridge</a>.</p>
Mon, 24 Oct 2016 21:27:58 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2505/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2505/Historical records may underestimate sea level rise<p>A new NASA and university study using NASA satellite data finds that tide gauges &mdash; the longest and highest-quality records of historical ocean water levels &mdash; may have underestimated the amount of global average sea level rise that occurred during the 20th&nbsp;century.</p>
<p>A research team led by Philip Thompson, associate director of the University of Hawaii Sea Level Center in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, Manoa, evaluated how various processes that cause sea level to change differently in different places may have affected past measurements. The team also included scientists from NASA&rsquo;s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, and Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not that there&rsquo;s something wrong with the instruments or the data,&rdquo; said Thompson, &ldquo;but for a variety of reasons, sea level does not change at the same pace everywhere at the same time. As it turns out, our best historical sea level records tend to be located where 20th century sea level rise was most likely less than the true global average.&rdquo;</p>
<p>One of the key processes the researchers looked at is the effect of &ldquo;ice melt fingerprints,&rdquo; which are global patterns of sea level change caused by deviations in Earth&rsquo;s rotation and local gravity that occur when a large ice mass melts. To determine the unique melt fingerprint for glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets, the team used data from NASA&rsquo;s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites on Earth&rsquo;s changing gravitational field, and&nbsp;<a href="https://sealevel.nasa.gov/news/43/a-nasa-first-computer-model-links-glaciers-global-sea-level" target="_blank">a novel modeling tool</a>&nbsp;(developed by study co-author Surendra Adhikari and the JPL team) that simulates how ocean mass is redistributed due to ice melting.</p>
<p>One of the most fascinating and counter-intuitive features of these fingerprints is that sea level drops in the vicinity of a melting glacier, instead of rising as might be expected. The loss of ice mass reduces the glacier&rsquo;s gravitational influence, causing nearby ocean water to migrate away. But far from the glacier, the water it has added to the ocean causes sea level to rise at a much greater rate.</p>
<p>During the 20th&nbsp;century, the dominant locations of global ice melt were in the Northern Hemisphere. The results of this study showed that many of the highest-quality historical water level records are taken from places where the melt fingerprints of Northern Hemisphere sources result in reduced local sea level change compared to the global average. Furthermore, the scientists found that factors capable of enhancing sea level rise at these locations, such as wind or Southern Hemisphere melt, were not likely to have counteracted the impact of fingerprints from Northern Hemisphere ice melt.</p>
<p>The study concludes it is highly unlikely that global average sea level rose less than 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) during the 20th century. The most likely amount was closer to 6.7 inches (17 centimeters).&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is really important, because it provides answers to the question about how melt fingerprints and the influence of wind on ocean circulation affect our ability to estimate past sea level rise,&rdquo; said Thompson. &ldquo;These results suggest that our longest records are most likely to underestimate past global mean change and allow us to establish the minimum amount of global sea level rise that could have occurred during the last century.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Results are published in <em>Geophysical Research Letters</em>. To read the full paper, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070552/abstract" target="_blank"><b>http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070552/abstract</b></a></p>
<p>GRACE is a joint NASA mission with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), in partnership with the University of Texas at Austin. For more information on the mission, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/" target="_blank"><b>http://grace.jpl.nasa.gov</b></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace" target="_blank"><b>http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace</b></a></p>
<p>For more information on sea level change, visit:</p>
<p><a href="http://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/" target="_blank"><b>http://uhslc.soest.hawaii.edu/</b></a></p>
<p><a href="https://sealevel.nasa.gov/" target="_blank"><b>https://sealevel.nasa.gov/</b></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Media contacts</h4>
<p>Alan Buis<br />
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.<br />
818-354-0474<br />
alan.buis@jpl.nasa.gov</p>
<p>Marcie Grabowski<br />
UHM SOEST<br />
808-956-3151<br />
mworkman@hawaii.edu</p>
Wed, 19 Oct 2016 14:48:51 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2504/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2504/September was warmest on record by narrow margin<p>September 2016 was the warmest September in 136 years of modern record-keeping, according to a monthly analysis of global temperatures by scientists at NASA&#39;s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.</p>
<p>September 2016&#39;s temperature was a razor-thin 0.004 degrees Celsius warmer than the previous warmest September in 2014. The margin is so narrow those two months are in a statistical tie. Last month was 0.91 degrees Celsius warmer than the mean September temperature from 1951-1980.</p>
<p>The record-warm September means 11 of the past 12 consecutive months dating back to October 2015 have set new monthly high-temperature records. Updates to the input data have meant that June 2016, previously reported to have been the warmest June on record, is, in GISS&#39;s updated analysis, the third warmest June behind 2015 and 1998 after receiving additional temperature readings from Antarctica. The late reports lowered the June 2016 anomaly by 0.05 degrees Celsius to 0.75.</p>
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The record-warm September means 11 of the past 12 consecutive months dating back to October 2015 have set new monthly high-temperature records.
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<p>&ldquo;Monthly rankings are sensitive to updates in the record, and our latest update to mid-winter readings from the South Pole has changed the ranking for June,&rdquo; said GISS director Gavin Schmidt. &ldquo;We continue to stress that while monthly rankings are newsworthy, they are not nearly as important as long-term trends.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The monthly analysis by the GISS team is assembled from publicly available data acquired by about 6,300 meteorological stations around the world, ship- and buoy-based instruments measuring sea surface temperature, and Antarctic research stations. The modern global temperature record begins around 1880 because previous observations didn&#39;t cover enough of the planet. Monthly analyses are updated when additional data become available, and the results are subject to change.</p>
<h4>Related links</h4>
<p>For more information on NASA GISS&#39;s monthly temperature analysis, visit:&nbsp;<a href="http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/" target="_blank">data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp</a>.</p>
<p>For more information about NASA GISS, visit:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/" target="_blank">www.giss.nasa.gov</a>.</p>
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 21:59:46 +0000http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2503/
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/2503/